Raindrops on Roses
by BittersweetSonata
Summary: She forgot her umbrella that day. And it poured.


**notes: **I found this in a folder and it was just supposed to be this short angsty one-shot but instead it turned into a small multi-chapter story. Here we go.

**setting: **au

**disclaimer: **I only own the plot, nothing else.

* * *

_{Why's everything so wrong?}_

Juvia Lockser hates the rain. It is gloomy and always brings everybody's spirits down. It reminds her of lonely childhood days and failed relationships, of dreary nights spent all alone. That's why she moved to Magnolia, where it's mostly sunny and when there isn't sun, there's snow.

But today it is raining.

Her long and wavy cornflower locks are blown about her as she walks through the almost empty streets. As much as she hates the rain, she feels like it is a part of her. So on the occasion that it does rain in Magnolia, she picks up her cheery pink umbrella and takes a walk.

She walks through the rain and with her bright umbrella held over head. She walks and she reminiscences the days of yesteryear and the past. The days of a sad little girl with a lonely heart and a broken spirit. It may not be ethical, but it is part of her life – so she walks.

Sometimes it's a stroll through the vacated park, sometimes a trip to the flooding canal – she almost fell in once, and it made her feel so very _alive. _(However, she's not quite ready to die just _yet._) Another day she might just wander through the sparsely filled streets and sidewalks of Magnolia.

Like today.

Only, today she forgot her pretty French rose colored umbrella and it is _pouring. _

The rain is drenching her clothing, and soaking deep, _deep _into her bones. It is cold, and unfeeling, and all she feels is sad. Maybe a bit melancholy.

Juvia is an old-fashioned sort of girl, and so she doesn't wear revealing clothes. Her federal blue skirt reaches just past her knees and as it soaks in the rain, it makes it more difficult to walk. She pulls her matching wool coat closer around her in an attempt to warm herself, but she realizes.

What exactly is the point of that?

So she lets her arms fall back to her sides and she continues her trek.

She watches as her brown boot-clad feet slosh through puddles that are fast forming on the cobblestone streets. The thought of the peculiar streets almost brings a smile, but it doesn't.

She feels nothing but dull, dull heartache, a melancholy sort of sadness, and longing emptiness. She shivers and wonders just where everything went wrong. It's not good to dwell on the past, she's been told numerous times by her cheery friend Lucy. And Juvia wishes she could see the world like Lucy.

The blonde sees the good in everyone – even Juvia herself – and she's always full of second chances. Lucy sees rainbows after rain, and flowers growing under the ground in a bitter winter. She sees sunshine on cloudy days, and rays of hope in the darkest of times. Lucy's smiles are bright and beautiful, and she breathes fairy tales.

Juvia knows. She knows that her dear friend has had a hard life, and so she wonders – wonder just how Lucy smiles and laughs. How she continues to live her life so happily when everything around her is falling apart.

Lucy just smiles.

Juvia doesn't understand.

Lucy likes puzzles and cryptic clues, so she gives her friend one in a smile. But Juvia has never exactly excelled in the mystery solving department, and while she likes mystery novels, she doesn't understand Lucy's clue.

Go figure.

She ponders this as she walks, cold and wet, without a purpose, through the streets of Magnolia. She isn't really paying attention to where she's going – she miraculously and unknowingly evades death in the form of an automobile about three times – before the bells of Kardia Cathedral chime three, and she realizes she's standing in the cemetery.

The rain is still coming down, hard and fast, as she blinks in surprise. How strange that she would end up in such a place and not notice. The gloomy place is deserted, and mostly overgrown – save for a few tombstones. It's rundown and she stares at one of the broken tombstones in sadness, because, aren't people supposed to take care of a resting place for the dead?

Juvia trails her pale, pale fingers over the top of the broken tombstone and sighs. She walks through the clumpy dead grass, midnight blue eyes taking everything in. She stops near the middle of the large cemetery and sits, on a tombstone of a person from two hundred years ago. She's hesitant, but the dead don't tell the secrets of the living, so Juvia decides that this could be a good opportunity to pour out all her uncertainties.

For as many murder mysteries as she has read, she forgets that the dead _do_ have the ability to tell secrets.

Juvia stares at the faded and worn inscription on the cold stone. She has to lean a little closer and run her fingers over the words before she has a name to go by. For the first time today, she smiles.

"Hello, Mavis Vermillion, this is Juvia Lockser speaking with you right now. Juvia knows you can't hear her, but she has something she would like to tell you anyway." she sits back and folds her hands neatly in her lap. "Juvia would just like to go ahead and say that she doesn't know what your story is, but she thinks that you and Juvia would have been good friends. Really, Juvia only has a few friends. One is a scary sort of guy named Gajeel, then there's Lucy and her 'not boyfriend.'" she tries to hold back a grin but fails. "Gajeel also has a 'not girlfriend.' Lucy and Gajeel think they can fool Juvia, but they can't." she lets out a bubbling giggle. "See, Juvia already feels better."

She glances around the still, still resting place of the deceased. There are no living beings, except for her, and a crow perching atop a tree a few hundred yards from her.

"Juvia apologizes on behalf of the Cathedral for the state of the cemetery. It's your home now, and it should be clean and not overgrown and broken down. This is not an old junkyard that nobody uses anymore. It is a resting place of those who have passed on and should be kept up." the cornflower-haired girl informs Mavis.

"You see, Mavis, the real reason Juvia is here is because she was on a walk and wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Juvia doesn't know how she ended up in the cemetery without noticing, but she has decided that it's okay. See, Juvia may be crazy for going out on a walk in this weather, but she has her reasons. She is feeling very insecure, and doesn't know what to do about it. Lucy always tells Juvia to be herself, and so she really tries. But Juvia was raised in a foster home and she was always told _not _to be herself, because she 'wasn't good enough.'"

Juvia traces a pattern on the worn granite and sighs. "It's not easy to always be yourself, is what Juvia thinks."

She looks back up at Mavis – or at least, what represents her now. There is some kind of epitaph written above her name and her birth-to-death dates. Juvia leans forward out of curiosity.

"'_Do fairies have tails, or don't they?_'" she reads aloud, her voice soft. She cocks a slender brow. "What kind of epitaph is that? What does it even mean?"

"It's a simple question, really. 'Do fairies have tails or don't they?'"

She jumps at the deep, rich drawl that reminds her of the calm before the storm. Juvia clutches a fist her chest and her head snaps up. Standing there beside her is probably the handsomest man she's ever seen in her life.

He is pale – not as pale as her – and his dark hair is tousled, like he's just gotten out of bed. His jaw is set and perfect, and his lips are drawn into a grim line. His eyes – oh his eyes – are a deep, _deep _blue and she feels like she could drown in their depth. She can't bring herself to look away from him. He is beautiful, ethereal, and ever so handsome.

And while he is only dressed in a crimson dress shirt, dark slacks, and dress shoes, he is holding a dark umbrella.

She blinks in surprise when she realizes that the rain is not coming down on her in torrents anymore.

(She blames her not realizing sooner on the fact that she is already soaked through to the bone.)

He stares down at her, expression impassive. "You're going to catch a cold and die if you stay out here without an umbrella." he looks her over. "Not that this will help your cause anymore. You're already drenched and shivering."

Juvia honestly has no response to that.

She watches as he crouches down beside her, still holding his umbrella over the both of them.

She starts to internally panic when she realizes that no, she hadn't been alone in the cemetery at all.

The handsome stranger stares at her. "Are you here visiting family?"

Juvia is still too distraught and embarrassed to reply, so he looks at the tombstone of dear Mavis Vermillion and his brows shoot to his hairline.

"You know this person?" he questions, his tone finally something other than a bored drawl.

Juvia blinks. "No. Juvia was just visiting."

He narrows his eyes. "You're visiting a deceased woman from two hundred years ago who you know nothing about, in the pouring rain, without an umbrella?"

Seems legit.

She nods. "Yes. That is exactly what Juvia was doing."

He opens his mouth to say something, but apparently changes his mind.

Juvia suddenly finds herself very uncomfortable. "Um…"

"I should probably get you home." he says, suddenly. "The weather's supposed to get worse, and I don't want you to drown or get struck by lightning."

Well, isn't he a charmer.

"Um…that isn't really necessary. Juvia can walk home on her own –,"

He waves a dismissive hand and is already pulling her up. "No, no. You'll probably stay out here and die of exposure or something and I'll find you tomorrow morning curled up on that stone down there the same color as your hair."

She doesn't have a response. Instead, she tallies up that he has mentioned her dying three times in the five minutes he's known her.

"Come on." he urges, and loops her arm around his, before dragging her along behind him.

Juvia can't really protest because she's too busy trying not to lose her footing on the uneven ground.

He grunts and helps her along. "They should really keep this place up."

She can't help but agree.

"By the way, I think you're good enough."

Juvia looks up at him in surprise, but he is staring straight ahead, still leading her out of the rundown cemetery. Suddenly there's a lump in her throat that she can't swallow and she doesn't want to cry but she is.

.

On a cold and rainy day, she went out for a walk and ended up in the cemetery where she talked to a dead person and met a handsome stranger, and that's how it all started.

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**end notes: **I like cemeteries, always have. I like walking through and reading the names and imagining what their life was like. It's a favorite past time of mine. I've never talked to a tombstone before. But it fit into this story so I put it in there. All the stories I write for Gray and Juvia are sad and angst-y, u.u, and I don't know why. I like sad things though. Why do I torture myself so?! By sad and angst-y, I mean that one of them is going to die, I just don't know _which one _yet. I hope you keep reading anyway.


End file.
